Cleantech Group

Nate Aden

Aashay Arora

David Arsenault

David Arsenault is the CEO and co-founder of Effenco, a company pioneering the electrification and connectivity of heavy-duty vocational vehicles. David and two of his classmates founded Effenco in 2006; shortly after David obtained his Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS). Using a unique and patented ultracapacitor-based technology, Effenco has developed a system that stops the engine of a vehicle during idle and electrifies its auxiliary equipment and hydraulics. The technology reduces greenhouse gas emissions while limiting fuel consumption and operational costs, as well as noise levels. Today, Effenco has a sales & distribution network in twelve countries. Prior to starting his own company, David worked for the jet engine manufacturer Pratt & Witney.

Donnel Baird

Donnel Baird is the founder of BlocPower, a clean tech startup based in New York City. BlocPower develops portfolios of clean energy retrofit opportunities in underserved communities, and connects those opportunities to investors seeking social, environmental, and financial returns. BlocPower creates jobs for qualified local low-income workers, energy savings for community institutions, reduces carbon emissions, and provides returns to investors. BlocPower is backed by Kapor Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Eric and Wendy Schmidt, the American Family Institute for social and environmental impact, and Salesforce. Baird is a graduate of Duke University and Columbia Business School, where he was a recipient of the Board of Overseers Fellowship and a recipient of investment from the Lang Fund for Entrepreneurial Initiatives. He spent four years as a political and community organizer, and more than two years managing a national initiative to leverage American Reinvestment and Recovery Act energy efficiency investments in underserved communities. Baird lives in his native borough of Brooklyn with his wife and son.

Yakov Berenshteyn

Brady Berg

Trevor Best

Trevor Best is the CEO and Co-Founder of Syzygy Plasmonics. Syzygy is pioneering a new type of chemical reactor designed to produce industrial chemicals at lower cost and with fewer carbon emissions. Their novel technology is driven by light rather than combustion, enabling a substantially more efficient process. Critically, Syzygy’s technology supports energy security and expansion through resource efficiency. Recent publications show Syzygy’s core components can be made without using rare earth materials, adding to the company’s value as a sustainable technology provider.

Before starting Syzygy, Trevor worked for the oilfield services company Baker Hughes. There he held a variety of management positions and gained expertise in technology development, project and personnel management, quality assurance, and regulatory compliance. He is originally from Midland Texas and is a graduate of Texas Tech University.

Apoorv Bhargava

Jahangir Bhatti

Fatih Birol

Dr Fatih Birol has served as Executive Director of the International Energy Agency since September 2015. He was re-elected in January 2018 for a second four-year term, which will begin in September 2019. Under his leadership, the IEA has undertaken its first comprehensive modernisation programme since its creation in 1974. This effort focuses on three pillars: opening the doors of the IEA to include major emerging countries, such as Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico and South Africa who have joined the IEA Family, thus increasing its share of global energy demand from 38% to almost 75%; broadening the IEA’s security mandate to natural gas and electricity as well as oil; and making the IEA the global hub for clean energy technologies and energy efficiency.

Prior to his nomination as Executive Director, Dr Birol spent over 20 years at the IEA, rising through the ranks to the position of Chief Economist responsible for the flagship World Energy Outlook publication. He is also the founder and chair of the IEA Energy Business Council, one of the world’s most active industry advisory groups in energy. Dr Birol has been named by Forbes Magazine among the most influential people on the world’s energy scene and was recognised by the Financial Times in 2017 as Energy Personality of the Year. He chairs the World Economic Forum’s (Davos) Energy Advisory Board and serves on the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on ‘Sustainable Energy for All’. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Japanese Emperor’s Order of the Rising Sun, the Order of the Polar Star from the King of Sweden and the highest Presidential decorations from Austria, Germany and Italy.

Before the IEA, Dr Birol worked at the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in Vienna. He earned a BSc degree in power engineering from the Technical University of Istanbul and received a MSc and PhD in energy economics from the Technical University of Vienna. Dr Birol was awarded a Doctorate of Science honoris causa from Imperial College London in 2013. He was also made an honorary life member of Galatasaray Football Club in 2013.

Cassie Bowe

Cassie is a Principal at Energy Impact Partners, a $650m fund investing in energy startups, where she is responsible for EIP’s west coast presence. Prior to joining EIP, she worked for 5 years at SunPower, one of the largest global solar companies, in policy and strategy. She has also gained operating experience at energy storage, micro-grid and energy asset management startups in business development and finance roles. Cassie holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, a BA in Economics from Harvard University, and was selected for Forbes 30 Under 30 in Energy (2018).

Shannon Bragg-Sitton

Dr. Bragg-Sitton is the Manager of the Systems Integration Department in the Nuclear Systems Design & Analysis Division at Idaho National Laboratory. Dr. Bragg-Sitton leads the 2017 DOE Big Idea Nuclear Energy Reimagined that seeks to overcome the technical, economic, and institutional barriers that inhibit wider use of nuclear energy in coordinated energy systems, both centralized and distributed (viz., poly-generation and hybrid energy systems). Shannon also serves in various leadership positions within Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) programs related to advanced nuclear fuel and advanced nuclear systems development. Since 2014, Shannon has served as the Deputy National Technical Director for the Advanced Fuels Campaign (AFC) in the DOE Fuel Cycle Technologies Program. AFC focuses on the development of enhanced accident tolerant fuels for light water reactors, advanced reactor fuels, and capability development to support fuel fabrication, testing and characterization. Shannon is also the Lead for Nuclear-Renewable Hybrid Energy Systems (N-R HES) under the DOE-NE Crosscutting Technologies Program. N-R HES designs seek to coordinate the use of multiple clean energy generation sources – namely nuclear and renewables – to meet both thermal and electrical energy needs. These systems would be designed to optimize energy use for the combined electricity, industrial manufacturing, and the transportation sectors. Prior to joining INL, Shannon was an Assistant Professor in the Nuclear Engineering Department at Texas A&M University (2007 – 2010) and was a Technical Staff Member at Los Alamos National Laboratory (2004 – 2007), during which time she was on assignment at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. In each of these capacities, her primary research area was in space nuclear power and propulsion systems. Her education includes a Bachelor of Science in Nuclear Engineering from Texas A&M University; a Master of Science in Medical Physics from the University of Texas at Houston; and a Masters and Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Tony Brasil

Mr. Brasil has 27 years of professional experience with the State of California and 22 of those years have been with the California Air Resources Board.  For more than a decade, he has led a team of scientists and engineers in developing and implementing regulations to reduce emission from trucks, buses, and off-road equipment.  Currently, his team is implementing existing regulations to clean up existing diesel trucks and buses and is also developing new regulations to accelerate commercialization of zero emission trucks and buses into the future.  Mr. Brasil has an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Davis and is a registered Mechanical Engineer in the State of California.

Louis Brasington

Maria Buitron

Doug Campbell

Grant Canary

John Cant

Geoff Catherwood

Grace Chan

Grace Chan is a venture principal for New Markets at bp ventures.  Grace focuses on venturing discovery and deal delivery in support of clean tech market entry offers in China, elsewhere in Asia Pacific, and India as well as technology-led ventures in service of one or more of bp’s ‘transition growth engines’ – bioenergy, convenience, EV charging, renewables and hydrogen.

Grace has 14 years of experience with bp with the last two years as an Investment Associate in bp Ventures’ commercial team. She supported and led transactions for a number of portfolio companies in China, the US, and the UK. Grace is passionate about finding and scaling new technologies to accelerate bp’s transition to a net zero company, and to help the world get to net zero.

Lucy Chatburn

Dan Corns

Anthony DeOrsey

Anthony manages Cleantech Group’s research team, delivering critical insights on new cleantech innovation and opportunities for engagement to Cleantech Group’s clients in the industrial, investment, and policy communities. He is based in the U.S.

Anthony joined Cleantech Group in late 2019 after over 8 years of work in US-China cross-border expansion consulting and start-up venture funding roles, including 5 years living in Shanghai.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from University of Rhode Island, a Masters in Sustainability from the Harvard Extension School, and he an MBA from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.

Snehal Desai

As Chief Growth and Innovation Officer, Snehal leads the company’s enterprise approach to improving customer experience and outcomes while driving profitable growth. He is focused on innovation and digital transformation that create sustainable benefits for customers and communities. He also leads the evolution of the Innovation, Technology, Product and Digital functions for the combined company of Xylem and Evoqua.

He received bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and chemical engineering from the University of Michigan and an M.B.A. from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. He is also on the board of directors of the US Water Alliance. He will be based at Evoqua’s world headquarters in Pittsburgh, PA, USA.

Cisco DeVries

Cisco DeVries is the CEO of OhmConnect. He has more than two decades of experience bringing policy and business groups together to inspire change and build successful companies. He created one of the most successful clean energy finance products, Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) which was named one of Scientific American Magazine’s Top 20 “World-Changing” ideas.

DeVries also served as CEO of Renew Financial, where he raised more than $2 billion in private capital and financed energy efficiency projects in nearly 100,000 homes, resulting in a reduction of one million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions. In 1996, he was appointed to Bill Clinton’s administration. He served as an aide to the US Secretary of Energy and held roles at the White House and the Department of Transportation.

He has a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego, and a Master’s degree from the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the Chairman of the Board of National non-profit organization, PACE Nation.

Charles Dimmler

Charles Dimmler is the co-founder and CEO of Checkerspot. His career has focused on building and leading teams at emerging growth companies in the life sciences and biotechnology sector. He has deep expertise in general management and leading strategic transactions, with over $1 billion of completed transactions ranging from public and private financings to joint ventures, licensing, and M&A.

From 2008 to 2016, he served as Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Solazyme, Inc. where he led financings and a range of other strategic transactions, including two venture capital rounds, the initial public offering, two public convertible debt issuances, and project financing for the construction of a commercial scale manufacturing facility in Brazil. In addition to his corporate development responsibilities, he served as Acting General Manager of Solazyme’s personal care business in 2009.

Prior to Solazyme, Charles was the General Manager of Geron BioMed, Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Geron Corporation, where he led a team focused on developing R&D and preclinical cell therapy candidates. Charles began his career as an investment banker at Peter J. Solomon Company. From 2008 to 2016, Charles remained active in his community as an Operations Leader with the Bay Area Mountain Rescue Unit, the mountain search, and rescue team of the San Mateo County Sheriff. Charles earned his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and his BA from Columbia University.

Chris Erickson

Chris is the founding general partner of Pangaea Ventures and has helped entrepreneurs change the world for over 25 years. Chris is based in Phoenix. He sits on the boards of several portfolio companies and, until 2001, Chris was a partner with Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt, specializing in environmental and corporate law. Chris has been on the board of the Canadian Venture Capital Association and several non-profits.

Chris has a Juris Doctorate from the University of Toronto and a B.Comm from the University of Calgary. Chris is an avid runner and skier and an average golfer.

Therese Feng

Therese Feng brings twenty years of experience in finance and prior research in environmental economics and policy to her work with The Climate Service. Prior to this appointment, she was Senior Vice President of Global Strategic Risk Management at Jefferies where she led firm stress-testing and country risk assessment for fixed income. Before this Dr. Feng provided methodological support on credit risk modeling at Morgan Stanley. Dr. Feng previously held a post-doctoral appointment at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government researching Chinese energy policy and innovation. Dr. Feng holds a Ph.D., MFS., and BS from Yale University.

Ashley Finan

Ashley Finan is the. Director of the National Reactor Innovation Center. In this role, she is responsible for overseeing initiatives to provide resources to reactor innovators to test, demonstrate, and conduct performance assessments to accelerate the deployment of advanced nuclear technology concepts.

Dr. Finan most recently served as Executive Director for the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, where she was responsible for managing the organization’s strategy, operations, policy and technical development, stakeholder outreach, and fundraising. She provided expert guidance to policymakers, academic teams, industry stakeholders, and NGOs. Dr. Finan previously served as a Director of Nuclear Innovation at Clean Air Task Force.

Dr. Finan earned her Ph.D. in Nuclear Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her doctoral work focused on energy innovation investment and policy optimization, both in nuclear and renewable energy technologies. She has played a key role in studies of the use of advanced nuclear energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in several applications, including hydrogen production, coal to liquids processes, and oil production methods. She has worked as a strategy and engineering consultant, primarily on nuclear energy applications. She has also contributed to analyses of the techno-economic potential of energy efficiency improvements in the residential and commercial sectors and several related topics.

Dr. Finan holds an SB degree in Physics as well as SB and SM degrees in Nuclear Science and Engineering from MIT.

Thomas Folker

John Fox

John is the CEO/President of merQbiz, a services and solutions provider for buyers and sellers in the recycling and recovered paper industries.  Prior to merQbiz, John was President of Voith Paper North America,  a market leader in supplying value-added systems, products and services for the papermaking industry through regionally distributed locations providing manufacturing, engineering and customer service. He has extensive international experience from the UK, Germany and North America from his time with Voith including Sales, Operations and Procurement. John holds an MBA from the University of Bradford (England) and a BSc in Paper Engineering from the University of Manchester.

Natasha Franck

Jonathan Goldberg

Matt Gregori

Matt Gregori serves as a Technology Development Manager for Customer Applications in the SoCalGas Research, Development, and Demonstration (RD&D) group. His team seeks out new natural gas and hydrogen technologies that are ready for deployment at the pilot or demonstration scale. His portfolio includes technologies in transportation, power generation, and residential, commercial, and industrial thermal applications.

During his career in the clean energy field, Matt has built and operated various types of clean energy projects, from biodiesel production facilities to food waste anaerobic digesters.

Matt earned a B.S. in Chemistry at The California Institute of Technology and an MBA at the Anderson School of Management at UCLA.

Maria Guercio

Lori Guetre

Lori Guetre is a VP, Business Development at Carbon Engineering where she has spent the last three years working on commercializing Direct Air Capture, an exciting new technology that will be one of the keys to solving global climate change.  Lori previously spent 26 years in engineering, project management, corporate finance, strategy, and business development in the aerospace sector.  Lori holds a Bachelor in Computer Engineering and a Master’s in Electrical Engineering.

Raghubir Gupta

Rhea Hamilton

As Managing Director Ventures of OGCI Climate Investments, Rhea Hamilton is responsible for economically viable investments in innovative companies and technologies. Previously, Rhea was a Managing Director for a European family office heading direct investments in clean technology and renewable energy. Prior to this, she was an Investment Director at RobecoSAM Private Equity. Rhea started her career with Royal Dutch Shell, where she held various positions including CFO of Shell Hydrogen. Rhea holds a Geological Engineering degree from the University of British Columbia, and an MBA from IESE in Barcelona, Spain.

Sara Hastings-Simon

Dr. Sara Hastings-Simon is a Senior Researcher at the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines and a Research Fellow at the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary. She is a macro energy system researcher and an expert in energy, innovation, and climate policy; her research is focused on understanding how energy and industrial transitions happen within different sectors of the economy, and how policy responses can improve outcomes.

Sara is co-founder and co-host of Energy vs Climate a live, interactive webinar and podcast that explores the trade-offs and hard truths of the energy transition in Alberta, Canada, and beyond. She is an expert member of the panel for Clean Growth with the Canadian Climate Choices Institute and a member of the board of directors of Emissions Reduction Alberta.

She was previously the Director of Clean Economy at the Pembina Institute where she founded Business Renewable Centre Canada. Prior to her work at Pembina she was the practice manager for Clean Technologies at McKinsey & Company, where she worked as a management consultant on topics of cleantech, energy, and sustainability. Earlier in her career she worked as an experimental physicist on realisations of rare earth ion-based quantum memories and holds a PhD in physics from the University of Geneva.

Yoachim Haynes

Yoachim Haynes is the Vice President of Strategy for EIP’s European Fund where he leads research, innovation, commercialization as well as LP engagement. He works closely with EIP’s global portfolio.

Yoachim has 10 years of experience working with startups, corporations and governments in the energy and climate space. He led the corporate innovation programs at Cleantech Group as a consulting manager where he developed the strategy for, launched, and operated multiple corporate venturing programs, including multi-stakeholder pilot project processes and CVCs. He also delivered clean technology market assessments, market entry strategy and other climate impact projects for governments and corporations. His clients in North America, Europe, and Asia operated across a diverse set of industries including heavy industry (e.g., steel, oil and gas, cement), power generation, real estate, agriculture, mobility and FMCG.  

He has a Bachelor of Science in Earth and Environmental Engineering from Columbia University (Cum Laude, C.P. Davis Scholar, Tau Beta Pi). He now lives in London but has spent most of his life in Trinidad and Tobago where he grew up. 

Thomas Healy

Thomas Healy is the founder and CEO at Hyliion, a technology start-up that is disrupting the trucking industry with electric propulsion.  After starting four years ago in Healy’s dorm room at Carnegie Mellon University, Hyliion now has over 50 employees and is based in Austin, TX.  Thomas’s passion for revolutionizing the trucking industry came from his upbringing in motorsports; he competed at a national level racing formula cars, sports cars, and go-karts.  He has founded two prior start-ups and has been featured as a technical author in the New York Times. Thomas was a Forbes 30 under 30 awardee in 2017.

Steve Heckeroth

Steve Heckeroth dedicated his life to creating working alternatives to burning fossil fuels on the first Earth Day in 1970. With a Bachelor of Architecture from Arizona State University he pioneered the design of passive solar homes and renewable energy products in the ‘70s and ‘80s. In 1990 encouraged by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) Zero emission mandate, he turned his attention to transportation and started building electric vehicles of all kinds and founded MendoMotive and Electrac in ‘92. He used Porsche Spyder replica kits to build electric sports cars with a range of over 100 miles. Understanding that battery weight was a big problem for electric cars, he switched his attention to tractors that benefit from added battery weight to increase traction. He made several tractors for individuals and then received a commission to build an experimental electric tractor for Ford/New Holland in ‘95. In 1996 Heckeroth was commissioned by a Japanese company (EFRIG) to build an electric tractor that could be used to explode land mines left behind after wars. Three scratch built prototypes were created with many new innovations like steer by wire, zero radius steering, remote control operation, the use of wheel motors, on board inverter/chargers for mobile AC power, solar charging shade canopies, motors mounted on implements to replace PTOs and improve safety and efficiency, and the first ever use of linear actuators on a full function electric tractor.

Between 2000 and 2007 Heckeroth worked as the Director of Building Integrated Photovoltaics for the largest thin-film solar manufacturer in the world designing PV roofing products and producing 6 patents for the company. After a hostile take-over and closure of the company by Chevron he went back to designing and building electric tractors. In 2010 he received a utility patent on exchanging battery packs in electric tractors to extend run time. In 2012 Heckeroth founded Solectrac LLC to take small farm electric tractors into commercial production. In 2013 Solectrac received a $500,000 grant from the Indian US Science and Technology Fund (IUSSTF) to develop four all electric row crop tractor prototypes. In 2016 Solectrac received a $250,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) Phase 1 grant to develop components for commercial production. Solectrac was in the running for a $1.5 M Phase 2 NSF grant when the new administration cut funding for the program. Heckeroth continued self-funding Solectrac and in 2017 made a prototype electric tractor for a large Indian tractor manufacturer. In 2018 an agreement was made to purchase mechanical components from the Indian company to build the 40 HP eUtility electric tractor. In 2019 the Indian manufacturer produced a 25 HP compact electric tractor (CET) and made Solectrac exclusive distributer in California and Canada. In 2020 Solectrac started development of a 70 hp vineyard/orchard tractor and continued development of the eFarmer row crop electric tractor while filing for several more utility patents.

On May 28, 2019 Solectrac incorporated as a California Benefit Corp under the leadership of Steve Heckeroth, Founder and CEO. Solectrac is supported by a team with diverse experience in engineering, agriculture, business, marketing and sales. In early 2020, Solectrac launched an equity crowdfunding campaign to support increased manufacturing of electric tractors. Solectrac is the recipient of the World Alliance’s Solar Impulse Efficient Solutions label. The Solar Impulse Foundation is selecting the most efficient and profitable solutions that are economically viable while being environmentally sustainable.

Brett Henkel

Brett Henkel’s unabashed optimism tempered by his mechanical engineering background and gas separation experience combine to bring a rare perspective to his position on Svante’s executive team.

As co-founder, he was instrumental in creating the process and the hardware used to prove the technology’s effectiveness as well as mobilizing external support throughout the path to becoming a successful innovation.  These experiences strengthened his knowledge of business development and program management priorities.

Prior to launching Svante, Mr. Henkel was the program manager for QuestAir Technologies’ compact hydrogen production system with its partner, ExxonMobil.

Brett received his Bachelor of Science in Physics, with distinction, and a Mechanical Engineering degree from the University of Victoria.

David Hochschild

David Hochschild was appointed chair of the California Energy Commission by Governor Gavin Newsom in February 2019. He fills the environmental position on the five-member Commission where four of the five members are required by law to have professional training in specific areas – engineering or physical science, environmental protection, economics, and law.

Chair Hochschild’s career has spanned public service, environmental advocacy, and the private sector. He first got involved in the solar energy field in 2001 in San Francisco as a special assistant to Mayor Willie Brown where Chair Hochschild launched a citywide $100 million initiative to put solar panels on public buildings. He also cofounded the Vote Solar Initiative, a 60,000-member advocacy organization promoting solar policies at the local, state, and federal levels. He was executive director of a national consortium of leading solar manufacturers and worked for five years at Solaria, a solar company in Silicon Valley. From 2007 to 2008, he served as a commissioner at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.

For his work to advance clean energy, Chair Hochschild was awarded the Sierra Club’s Trailblazer Award, the American Lung Association’s Clean Air Hero Award, and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Million Solar Roof True Champion Award. Chair Hochschild holds a bachelor of arts from Swarthmore College and a master of public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He also was a Coro Fellow in Public Affairs.

Matanya Horowitz

Jeremy Hux

Jeremy Hux is a Senior Managing Director and Head of Energy and Sustainable Technologies at Marathon Capital.

Mr. Hux has over 20 years of technology, energy, and sustainable technology investment banking and private equity experience. He has advised on over $80 billion of transactions over his career. He spent nine years at Credit Suisse, where he was a Managing Director and Head of Credit Suisse’s Clean Technology Investment Banking practice and eight years at Morgan Stanley where he created and was head of Morgan Stanley’s West Coast Clean Technology Banking group.

Mr. Hux was also the founder and Managing Partner of HCP Advisors, an independent Technology and Clean Technology investment banking boutique and a Partner at True North Venture Partners, a clean technology and sustainability-focused private equity and venture capital firm.

Mr. Hux received a BA in Economics and History from Vanderbilt University, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude.

Craig Irwin

Craig Irwin is a Managing Director, Senior Research Analyst leading ROTH’s Cleantech coverage in biofuels, advanced lighting, and the companies providing products and services that enable the Utility of The Future, including batteries and electric vehicles. Prior to joining ROTH Capital Partners, Mr. Irwin covered Cleantech companies at Wedbush, Merriman Curhan Ford, and First Albany, where his equity research experience in the sector reaches back to 2001. Mr. Irwin has also served as a Director of corporate strategy for a public energy storage company, where he completed the acquisition of leading energy storage and technology companies.

Mr. Irwin has a BS from the University of Rochester.

Jeanette Jackson

Jeanette Jackson is the CEO of Foresight, Canada’s cleantech accelerator.
Foresight works with innovators, industry, investors, government, and academia
across Canada to identify, develop, and commercialize cleantech solutions.

Jeanette is an entrepreneur with broad experience across multiple industries. She
founded a tech company and built it into a thriving business before a successful
exit. She has secured millions in investment dollars, project funding and revenue,
led cross-functional teams, and developed innovative programs for entrepreneurs,
industry, and investors.

Since taking on the role of Foresight CEO, Jeanette has led the organization
through remarkable growth, expanding accelerator programs from one province to
national, building a vibrant Innovation Challenge program, and launching a sectoral
approach to cleantech innovation. Recognized as a leader in cleantech, both in Canada and internationally, Jeanette is a frequent speaker, media guest, and
advisor to industry and government.

Pete Johnson

Pete is a Partner with Azimuth Capital.  His responsibilities include developing investment hypotheses in the changing energy landscape, origination of new investment opportunities, performing strategic, technical, and financial due diligence, and guiding existing portfolio companies.  Pete runs the Firm’s SF Bay Area office and focuses on investments in energy and materials technology and infrastructure.

Prior to joining Azimuth, Pete was Co-Founder, President, and Chief Technology Officer of Monolith Materials, Inc., a company that secured, developed, and commercialized technology for producing industrial grade hydrogen and carbon materials from natural gas with significant environmental and economic advantages over incumbent methods.  Monolith is now constructing a commercial facility in Nebraska and is considered the gold standard for new technology in the carbon materials industry.  Prior to forming Monolith, Pete led engineering and product development for AREVA Solar and spearheaded the manufacturing and construction of a 125 MW solar plant in Rajasthan, India after successfully merging the company Ausra with AREVA.

Pete received a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.  Prior to that he graduated Summa cum Laude with a Bachelors degree in Physics from the University of Utah.  He is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of California and is an inventor on 12 patents.  He serves as an advisor to multiple companies in the energy and material space as well as to the US Department of Energy.

Stacy Kauk

David Keith

David Keith has worked near the interface between climate science, energy technology, and public policy for twenty-five years. Best known for his work on the science, technology, and public policy of solar geoengineering, David led the development of Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program. He took first prize in Canada’s national physics prize exam, won MIT’s prize for excellence in experimental physics, and was one of TIME magazine’s Heroes of the Environment. David is a Professor at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Harvard Kennedy School, and founder of Carbon Engineering, a company developing technology to capture CO2 from ambient air.

Pat Kennedy

Kostyantyn Khomutov

Kostyantyn Khomutov is a Co-Founder and the Chief Executive Officer of GBatteries, an advanced battery technology company. GBatteries has developed a technology that allows the ultra-fast charging of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries without reducing cycle life, changing the battery chemistry, or altering the manufacturing process. A seasoned executive with more than 15 years of experience in the global technology sector, Kostya also has a Master of Applied Science in Aerospace Engineering from Carleton University.

Prior to GBatteries, Kostya was the founder of several organizations including Wolna, a SatCom company and Smart Rotor Systems (SRS), an organization that develops vibration and noise reduction technology for helicopters.

Dave King

Dave King has 25+ years of expertise in managing and growing computer hardware development, manufacturing, and software technology companies.

Dave is a proven expert with System on a Chip (SoC) development, data center and related technologies.

Career highlights include the completion of more than 20 public and private company financings and 10 mergers, acquisitions or exits. A wide array of executive and technology development roles at Xerox, Compaq, Electronics Manufacturing Group, Wi-LAN, Cineplex Entertainment and ZAIO.

Steven Kloos

Steve Kloos is an experienced investor and company leader with a deep background in water, energy, and climate. He was previously at GE Water as Membrane Technology Leader, Advanced Technology Leader, and member of GE’s venture capital team. Steve led new investment sourcing as a Partner at True North Venture Partners, and served in two stints leading True North portfolio companies, and he is the founding board chair of Current Water and a longtime advisor to ImagineH2O.

Ajay Kochhar

What happens to an electric vehicle battery when it dies?   As rechargeable lithium-ion (li-ion) batteries continue to play an increasingly vital role in our society, there is an urgent need for a safe, sustainable and economically viable end-of-lifecycle pathway for these batteries. Since 2016, Ajay Kochhar has led the successful scale-up of Li-Cycle to address this urgent global challenge and opportunity. The company is now the largest commercial lithium-ion battery recycler in North America. Li-Cycle is now at another inflection point – on the verge of an international expansion.

Prior to Li-Cycle, Ajay gained deep technology and project development experience through progressive roles with Hatch’s Industrial Clean Tech and Advisory practices. While working in the Industrial Clean Tech practice, Ajay gained in-depth engineering and project management experience through clean technology development in the lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, gold, lead, zinc, molybdenum, and rare earth metals industries. His technical expertise spans the entire project lifecycle, from conceptual and pre-feasibility studies to construction and commissioning. Following his work in the industrial clean tech engineering field, Ajay worked as a Management Consultant with Hatch’s Advisory practice. In this role, he led teams to deliver financial and technical reviews of multi-billion-dollar investment opportunities, including technologies and assets across the li-ion battery value chain.

Ajay originally graduated from the University of Toronto in Chemical Engineering with honours. Ajay comes from entrepreneurial roots with family business experience gained from a young age.

Tyler Lancaster

Tyler Lancaster is a Principal at Energize Ventures, a Chicago-based venture capital firm investing in digital innovation for energy and industry. Tyler drives investment activity and portfolio management for Energize, focusing primarily on the intersection of software with the physical world. Tyler is a Board Director for Aurora Solar, as well as a Board Observer for Volta Charging and Jupiter Intelligence. He is helps manage Energize portfolio companies Matroid and Optimus Ride.

Prior to joining Energize, Tyler worked at Accenture Strategy, where he shaped new business models and investment plans for Fortune 500 electric utilities and private equity. His work focused on distributed energy resources, regulatory innovation, grid modernization, and transportation electrification. Tyler began his career building commercial solar PV and energy efficiency projects. Tyler holds a B.S. in Earth and Environmental Engineering from Columbia University, where he was an Egleston Scholar.

Howard Learner

Howard A. Learner is an experienced attorney who serves as ELPC’s President and Executive Director. He is responsible for ELPC’s overall strategic leadership, policy direction and financial platform. Mr. Learner served as the General Counsel for Business and Professional People for the Public Interest, specializing in environmental, energy, economic development and civil rights litigation and policy development. He serves as Vice-Chair of the (Cook County) Forest Preserve Foundation. He was the founding Chair of the Illinois Citizens Utility Board and founding Chair of the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance. He served on the Executive Committee and Board of the Environmental Law Institute and as the Vice-Chair of the U.S. EPA’s National Advisory Council on Environmental Policy and Technologies. Mr. Learner is an Adjunct Professor at Northwestern University Law School and the University of Michigan Law School, teaching advanced seminars in energy law and climate change policy.

Alicia Lenis

Joe Madden

Joe is a pioneering entrepreneur focused on the convergence of markets, data, and impact. In 2015, he co-authored a paper outlining how existing commodity production data could be mined, transformed, and delivered to markets, enabling a deeper assessment of “value.” In order to drive the digital transformation of global commodity markets, Joe co-founded Xpansiv, which merged with CBL to create the global marketplace for Intelligent Commodities™. Prior to Xpansiv, Joe co-founded EOS Climate, a market leader in the California greenhouse gas markets, which was awarded the Governor’s Economic and Environmental Leadership Award (GEELA), California’s highest environmental honor.

Erin Madro

Erin Madro is a senior engineer leading the Environmental Innovation team at Cenovus Energy, where she channels her passion for sustainability, collaboration, strategy and innovation to help transform the energy industry towards a cleaner future. Ms. Madro has nearly a decade of experience in upstream oil and gas engineering and further expertise in carbon capture and sequestration, digital transformation and ESG strategy. Currently, Ms. Madro is a secondee to Evok Innovations as an extension of her role at Cenovus Energy.

Ms. Madro has a B.A.Sc in Chemical & Biological Engineering from the University of British Columbia and an MBA from the University of Calgary. Ms. Madro also serves on the board of SPECEF, a non-profit organization that supports energy literacy programs for youth across Canada. She is an avid outdoor adventurist, exploring the Canadian Rockies in most of her free time.

Taku Matsumoto

Zebedee McLaurin

Steve Meller

Steve Meller is an internationally recognized innovation strategist whose career has taken him almost everywhere – whether it’s global and local organizations or C-Suite executives of F100 companies, Boards, CEOs of start-ups, Venture Capital, senior country officials and across nearly every vertical there is and covering the breadth of Corporate, Academic, Government and Private Sectors – as an investor, an advisor, strategist and partner.  He understands how to position new, novel and disruption innovations and new business models for success to maximize innovation potential and impact and has been involved in creating new and innovative strategies, businesses, capabilities, platforms and business models.

Having trained as a neuroscientist, he had his first taste of disruptive innovation where he was the first to discover new pathways involved in chronic pain which are now leading to new clinical therapies. Motivated to produce an even greater impact, Steve was recruited to Procter & Gamble (P&G – a F50 company) where he spent almost 2 decades honing his ability to create new strategies, enable disruptive innovation and build key enabling platforms that provided disproportionate business growth and significant profit. As a result, the company added billions each year to the bottom line and enabled P&G to be recognized as one of the world’s most innovative companies.

Finding his own space after an early retirement in late 2012 from P&G as Chief Innovation Catalyst, he moved to sunny Northern California when he met his wife and has been providing consulting on strategy and innovation across the globe in nearly every vertical to C-Suite executives of F100 companies, CEOs of start-ups, Boards, investment companies and senior country officials in multiple governments. In addition to consulting, he has also founded or co-founded a number of companies on multiple continents across diverse sectors that are focused on strategies for disruptive change. He has been an entertaining key-note speaker on every continent across widely divergent topics. He now focuses his time as the CEO of a disruptive technology company addressing climate change.

Steve is originally from Adelaide, South Australia and was awarded a B.Sc., B.Sc. (Hons.), and a Ph.D in Neuroscience from the University of Adelaide. When he’s not traveling the world for business or pleasure, he resides in Atherton, CA with his American-born wife, Colleen Haight, who holds an MBA in Finance and a Ph.D in Economics and is currently Professor of Economics at San Jose State University.

Robert Menegotto

Robert is the President and Chief Executive Officer of MANTECH and ManSci Inc, its USA based subsidiary. Robert holds a B.Sc. in Biochemistry and a minor in Business Administration from the University of Guelph. Robert is married to Lynn Menegotto and they have 3 wonderful children Maja, Talija and Sasha, 2 girls and a boy. Robert and Lynn are proud of their children all currently studying in University, therefore, there is a money tree growing in their back yard.

Andrée-Lise Méthot

Andrée-Lise Méthot is the Founder and Managing Partner of Cycle Capital Management, an impact investor and the most active cleantech venture capital platform in Canada. She has over 25 years of experience in venture capital, management and engineering. In the last few years, she has fundraised almost $400M from strategic and industrial players and she recently closed a fund with a strategic institutional investor in China.

Andrée-Lise serves on many boards of directors for public and private companies, including some of CCM’s portfolio companies. She is the co-founder and Chair of the Ecofuel Accelerator, for which she also championed the Ecofuel Fund. She sits on the Board of directors of Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), Transition énergétique Québec (TEQ) and Société québécoise des infrastructures (SQI). She also co-founded Écotech Québec, the Quebec cleantech cluster and SWITCH, the Alliance for a green economy.

Andrée-Lise sits on the North-American advisory Board of the Cleantech Group, the selection committee of Bloomberg’s New Energy Finance’s New Energy Pioneers, the Private Sector Advisory Board for the Networks of Centres of Excellence of Canada and the External Advisory Committee to the Vice Principal Research and International Relations at McGill University. She co-chaired a Task Force under the auspices of the UNEP and the SETAC on the Life Cycle Initiative. She sat on various recognition committees, including the Grand prix du Génie Québécois, the Canadian Consulting Engineering Awards, and the EY Entrepreneur of the Year contest.

Andrée-Lise was recognized as one of Canada’s Clean16, named one of the Top 20 cleantech investors by CleanTechnica and amongst the most influential women in sustainable development and in the cleantech industry by Corporate Knight.

Albert Mihranyan

Albert Mihranyan is CEO and Founder of Nvigorea AB. He is Professor of Nanotechnology at Uppsala University. Prof. Mihranyan is the author of 95 peer-reviewed articles, ten patent families, and the founder of 2 start-up companies. His research interests include nanomaterials for life sciences applications, cellulosic nanomaterials, bioprocessing, and drinking water purification.

Nisa Mirza

Tim Mohin

Tim Mohin is a globally recognized sustainability/ESG (Environmental Social and Governance) executive. He is the Executive Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer for Persefoni – the intelligent carbon footprint management and reporting platform.

Previously Tim was the Chief Executive of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the world’s largest ESG reporting standard.

With more than 20 years’ experience at three Fortune 500 companies – Intel, Apple and AMD – Mr. Mohin has developed strategies to embed sustainability into business. Mr. Mohin also led the development of environmental policy, including the Clean Air Act, within the Environmental Protection Agency and the United States Senate.

Mr. Mohin serves as an ESG advisor to BASF as well as other companies and was a founder and Chairman of the Board for the Responsible Business Alliance. He is the author of Changing Business from the Inside Out and a frequent speaker and writer on corporate responsibility. Mr. Mohin is consistently recognized in the top 20 of Corporate Social Responsibility Influence Leaders.

Eugene Montoya

Eugene Montoya joined Wells Fargo in 2020 as a climate change specialist focused on enterprise-level capacity-building. He’s recently migrated into a leading role with the Sustainable Finance Center of Excellence as a climate strategy and impact specialist connecting the work of climate scenario analysis with internal risk and finance use cases. Previous to Wells, Eugene spent over 5 years with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York focusing on trade, investment & commodity finance verticals across U.S. markets and implications for financial condition, business strategy, and corporate governance oversight. Eugene has worked on climate-related risks & opportunities since 2009 with direct and significant experiences across the buy side, sell side, ETFs, project finance, banking, and sovereign wealth.

Francisco Morocz

Ryan Morris

Ryan Morris is an entrepreneur and investor with over 12 years of experience building companies. As Executive Chairman of Turntide Technologies since October 2017 and CEO since July 2020, he is helping drive Turntide’s mission of replacing all the world’s electric motors with optimal efficiency motor systems. Ryan founded Meson Capital Partners LLC, an investment firm in Feb 2009. Meson Capital applies exponential technologies to established businesses to transform them into leaders in their domains. Ryan has served as chairman of three publicly traded companies including most recently Sevcon, Inc. which was a world leader in power electronics for high performance electric vehicles. Sevcon was sold to BorgWarner in September 2017. Ryan also co-founded Belichka in 2019 with his wife to create plant-based keto snacks to drive sustainable healthy energy.

In July 2008, after finishing his B.S. and M.Eng. from Cornell University in Operations Research & Information Engineering, Ryan was Co-Founder and CEO of VideoNote LLC, a software company dedicated to capturing and indexing the videos of college lectures.

Ryan is passionate about using technology and software to solve hard problems. He was formerly a champion rower and road cyclist, outdoor sports that have helped drive his passion for ending the use of fossil fuels in an economically rational way. 

Fares Mubarak

Bob Mumgaard

Kedar Murthy

Laura Nereng

Laura Nereng is in her 33rd year at 3M, having served in various roles including Corporate Strategy, Business Development, Marketing, Sales, Product Engineering, R&D, Manufacturing, and Sustainability.

Laura is currently engaged in the development of transformational new businesses for 3M at the Corporate level from the center of the company, shaping R&D programs and new business ventures alongside internal and external collaborators.

Laura received a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame in 1988, and an MBA from Cardinal Stritch University in 2005.

Robert Niven

Rob Niven is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Canadian company CarbonCure Technologies, the global leader in carbon dioxide removal technologies for the concrete industry and Cleantech Group’s 2020 North American Cleantech Company of the Year. Rob has the simple goal of making concrete sustainability both profitable and easy for industry. Under his direction, CarbonCure and its partners are achieving their mission to reduce 500 million tonnes of carbon emissions annually. Rob has received countless international awards recognizing his leadership in sustainability, innovation and technology development including the Canada’s Top 40 Under 40, the 2016 Ernest C. Manning Innovation Award, the Cleantech Group’s Top 100 Global Cleantech Companies and the BloombergNEF New Energy Pioneers Award. Rob holds an MSc in Environmental Engineering from McGill University and a BSc in Chemistry from the University of Victoria, British Columbia.

Steve Oldham

Steve Oldham is a prominent entrepreneur and carbon removal advocate. He currently serves as CEO of Captura where he is leading the commercialization of Direct Ocean Capture – a climate solution that combines innovative technology with the natural carbon removal powers of the ocean to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere at scale.

Steve’s career has focused on bringing ground-breaking technologies to market in a variety of domains, including robotics, aerospace, and climate. Steve was previously CEO of leading Direct Air Capture (DAC) company, Carbon Engineering, where he grew the company from ~15 to ~150 people and established the partnership with Occidental that led to their acquisition of Carbon Engineering in November 2023.

Steve also served as Senior Vice President, Strategic Business Development for MDA, a leading Canadian technology firm. At MDA, Steve held a variety of senior executive positions across Canada and the US, covering General Management, Business Development, and Strategy, and secured financing from Government and commercial sources for a variety of complex technologies, including several large satellite programs.

Ryan Orbauch

Seamus O’Regan

Seamus O’Regan is the Minister of Natural Resources and the Member of Parliament for St. John’s South-Mount Pearl.

He is best known to Canadians for his 10 years as co-host of CTV’s Canada AM.

From St. John’s, Newfoundland, Seamus was raised in Goose Bay, Labrador. He studied politics at St. Francis Xavier University and University College Dublin, and marketing strategies at INSEAD, near Paris. He received his

Master of Philosophy degree from the University of Cambridge, England.

While working for the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Seamus worked for the Minister of Justice and as well for the Premier as Senior Policy Advisor.

In 1999, he was named one of Maclean’s Magazine’s “100 Young Canadians to Watch” and has been twice nominated for a Gemini Award. In 2007, he became the first journalist to be named to Canada’s Top 40 Under 40.

In 2012, Seamus was named Bell Let’s Talk Ambassador, alongside Clara Hughes, with the aim of removing the stigma of mental illness through greater communication and understanding. He moderated a forum on mental health and creativity at Rideau Hall, hosted by Her Excellency, Sharon Johnston.

In 2013, Seamus was named Distinguished Media Innovator at Ryerson University. He also served as Executive Vice President, Communications, at The Stronach Group of Companies.

He has traveled to Liberia as a Spread the Net Ambassador in support of the fight against malaria, and to Antarctica with Students on Ice, to report on the effects of climate change on our polar regions.

For 10 years, Seamus sat on the board of The Rooms – the home of the Provincial Art Gallery, Museum, and Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador. He is a founding board member of both The Smiling Land Foundation and The Company Theater. Over the years, he has also served on the boards of World Wildlife Fund-Canada, The Walrus, Katimavik, and Canada World Youth.

In 2015 Seamus was elected to represent his hometown in the riding of St. John’s South – Mount Pearl, and in 2017 he was appointed to Cabinet as the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence. In January 2019, Seamus was appointed the Minister of Indigenous Services. Seamus was re-elected in October 2019 and is currently the Minister of Natural Resources.

In April of 2019, Seamus and Premier Dwight Ball signed a renewed Atlantic Accord Agreement, which will bring an additional $2 billion into Newfoundland and Labrador from Canada’s shares in Hibernia. Because of the Atlantic Accord, Newfoundland & Labrador receives 100% of the royalties from our offshore oil, meaning we have now become the principal beneficiary of our offshore. The agreement also outlines the federal government’s commitment to help ensure the provincial government can make the Lower Churchill Projects, including Muskrat Falls, financially sustainable for ratepayers.

Scott Pinizzotto

Matthew Plante

Alfred Poor

Alfred Poor became CEO of Ideanomics in February 2019, having previously serving as the company’s Chief Operating Officer. He is a seasoned executive experienced in scaling disruptive cross-border technology companies and has been either founder or executive management at several successful start-ups which were sold to public companies and private equity firms, including AOL TimeWarner’s (NYSE:TW) acquisition of Relegence, and Wix.com’s (Nasdaq:WIX) acquisition of Websplanet. Alf is actively engaged in the company’s capital-raising, M&A, new market development activities in addition to implementing the firm’s overall vision and execution strategy.

Rodrigo Prudencio

Rodrigo is a member of the Climate Pledge Fund, Amazon’s corporate venture fund dedicated to backing high-quality startups that can work with Amazon to meet Amazon’s Climate Pledge. Previously, he led deals for the Alexa Fund, a venture capital fund built at Amazon to back leading companies in voice and multimodal technology. Rodrigo was the founder of Shuddle, a family-focused transportation service, and CEO of Hara Software. He was also partner at Nth Power, a venture capital firm dedicated to energy technology, and spent several years in Washington, D.C. working on international energy and environmental policy. He graduated from Middlebury College with a B.A. in International Relations and received his MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.

Julia Reichelstein

Chris Reid

Chris currently serves as the CEO of Ekona Power Inc., Managing Director of Innovative Breakthrough Energy Technologies (IBET), and Executive Director of Rotoliptic Technologies, an early stage technology company. He also works with many early stage ventures in varying capacities as an EIR with the Foresight Cleantech Accelerator. Prior to this, Mr. Reid worked with Plug Power as General Manager of the Motive Power Division following the acquisition of Cellex in April 2007. He was responsible for directing the Motive Power Division as it commercialized its fuel cell power products for material handling customers.

Prior to joining Plug Power, Mr. Reid was co-founder of Cellex and had been Chief Executive Officer since it was incorporated in 1998. Cellex was a pioneering company that introduced fuel cells products into the material handling industry. Before founding Cellex, he was the Managing Partner in General Exergy Inc., an energy technology consulting firm. From 1995 to 1997, he worked as a principal researcher for a fuel cell development program at the Institute of Integrated Energy Systems sponsored by British Gas and Ballard Power Systems Inc. Before that, Mr. Reid worked developing core technology for two early stage companies and as a plant engineer for a major manufacturing company.

Mr. Reid holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Manitoba and a Master of Applied Science degree from the University of Victoria. Mr. Reid is a director of the Working Opportunity Fund (EVCC) Ltd and a former director of Vancouver Aquarium and ACETECH, an academy for Technology CEOs. Chris has been a member of the Working Opportunity Fund’s board since 2007.

Jonathan Rhone

Jonathan is an award-winning, serial cleantech entrepreneur. In his current role as CEO of Axine Water Technologies, he’s scaling-up the company to revolutionize industrial wastewater treatment and address a global environmental problem. He’s also a founder and director of Evok Innovations, a $100 million cleantech venture fund with a mission to transform the energy value chain. Jonathan is the founder and former CEO of Nexterra Systems a global supplier of waste-to-energy systems. Prior to Nexterra, he held leadership positions with a NASDAQ-listed cleantech company, and the Delphi Group, an international consultancy. He began his career in oil and gas with Amoco Canada (now BP).

Jonathan chairs the BC Cleantech CEO Alliance. He is a past board member of Vancity Capital, the venture financing subsidiary of Vancity. He is a past member of the BC Premier’s Technology Council and has sat on a number of private and public sector advisory boards. In 2009, he was recognized as Technology Industry Person of the Year by the BC Technology Industry Association. In 2020, he was recognized as Industry Icon by the BC Cleantech Industry.

Michael Roeth

Mike has worked in the commercial vehicle industry for over 35 years, is the Executive Director of the North American Council for Freight Efficiency and is the trucking lead for the Rocky Mountain Institute. Mike’s specialty is brokering green truck collaborative technologies into the real world at scale. Mike was awarded the prestigious 2020 L. Ray Buckendale Lecturer and manuscript author. He has a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the Ohio State University and a Master’s in Organizational Leadership from the Indiana Institute of Technology. Roeth served on the second National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, Medicine Committee on Reducing Fuel Consumption and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles, is a Department of Energy Merit Reviewer and served as Chairman of the Board for the Truck Manufacturers Association. He understands the customers, operations and intricacies of the commercial vehicle industry having held various positions in product development, engineering, reliability and quality, sales, materials and plant management with Navistar and Behr/Cummins.

Abigail Ross-Hopper

Abigail Ross Hopper is the President and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, the national trade organization for America’s solar energy industries. She oversees all of SEIA’s activities, including government affairs, research, communications, and industry leadership, and is focused on creating a marketplace where solar will constitute a significant percentage of America’s energy generation.

Before joining SEIA, Abby was the Director of the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, where she led the agency that oversaw the leasing and development of all offshore energy, from oil and natural gas to offshore wind.

She served formerly as the Director of the Maryland Energy Administration (MEA), serving as acting beginning in 2012, and then as Director starting in June 2013. She also served concurrently as Energy Advisor to Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley since 2010. In those roles, she had significant engagement with the state’s electric distribution utilities on matters ranging from resiliency and reliability of the grid to multiple mergers of the state’s utilities.
Abby previously spent over two years as Deputy General Counsel with the Maryland Public Service Commission. Before embarking on a career in public service, Abby spent nine years in private practice.

Abby graduated Cum Laude from the University of Maryland School of Law and earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Dartmouth College. She is the very proud mom of three children and loves to read, ride her Peloton, do hot yoga and lie on the beach in her (not so free) time.

Rick Sander

Pat Sapinsley

Lidija Sekaric

In her role as National Business Director, Lidija sets the strategic direction for Siemens business units on the topic of Distributed Energy Systems, with focus on on-site energy generation, energy storage, and advanced control systems, including microgrids and virtual power plants. She leads market approaches to customer segments, policy development, and strategic technology investments.

Lidija’s experience spans energy and semiconductor industries and federal government. Prior to joining Siemens she served in a variety of executive and advisory roles at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) where she managed a portfolio across multiple applied energy programs including leading the near and long-term US government solar program strategy. Lidija has served at the executive committee level for several organizations, including the International Energy Agency (IEA) and currently serves on boards and advisory bodies of research institutes and non-profit organizations.

Lidija holds a Ph.D. Applied Physics from Cornell University and has been granted 30 U.S. patents.

Cassidy Shell

Deepinder Singh

Deepinder Singh co-founded 75F after having designed some of the world’s fastest core networks for Tier 1 service providers like AT&T, NTT and Verizon. With almost 25 years of experience in electronics and computing, he’s brought a wealth of embedded products to the market. His key goal in every endeavor is to simplify operational complexity and make products intuitive.

Marcel Smit

Rich Sorkin

During his three-decade-long career as a serial entrepreneur, executive, advisor, board member and investor, Mr. Rich Sorkin has led breakthrough companies in numerous industries. Mr. Sorkin focuses on commercializing transformative technologies, with a significant concentration on energy, financial services, the environment, media and politics. A founder of multiple startups, his companies have pioneered the use of satellite data and scalable cloud computing to predict weather events for commodity traders and applied analytics to detect identity theft. In his capacity as CEO of Jupiter, Mr. Sorkin testified before the United States Congress’ Committee on Science, Space, and Technology; cofounded the Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment (CCRI); has served as a member of the climate risk working group of McKinsey & Company; and been a keynote speaker at major global events including the 2019 Amsterdam International Water Week.

Mr. Sorkin is the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Zip2, an Internet 1.0 company best known for analytics and visualization of geospatial data (acquired by HP for over $300 million). He served as president of Kaggle prior to its acquisition by Google, leading the introduction of big data predictive analytics into the enterprise market and serving as the company’s premier industry strategist.

Mr. Sorkin began his career as a consultant at Bain & Company. Before moving to Silicon Valley to focus on leading technology companies, he helped initiate research of the supercomputer industry at Goldman Sachs. After graduating from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was a Lockheed Scholar, he ran the Sound Blaster business at Creative Labs during the time it gained market dominance, growing revenues from under $100M to close to $1 billion.
In addition to Stanford, Mr. Sorkin is an alumnus of Yale University. He has served as a board member at publicly traded companies, private firms, the Yale University Development Board, and several non-profit organizations.

Arcady Sosinov

Arcady Sosinov is the Founder and CEO of FreeWire Technologies, a San Francisco Bay Area startup that develops power solutions for the grid edge, with a focus on infrastructure-light EV ultrafast charging. He has led the company from ideation, formation, incubation, and now customer acquisition and revenue growth. Arcady also serves as a Venture Advisor to Forge Ventures, and mentors entrepreneurial teams from various universities including UC Berkeley, San Jose State, and Cal Poly. Prior to FreeWire, Arcady spent seven years in the finance industry, most recently with a $130B investment firm called GMO. His responsibilities included quantitative analysis and application development, with a focus on emerging markets. Arcady holds two bachelor’s degrees from Boston University, as well as an MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

Holly Stower

Holly is a Senior Associate leading Resources & Environment research at Cleantech Group and is based in the UK. She is focused on emerging innovation and trends, including those in water, waste, the circular economy, natural resources, and corporate sustainability. ​

Prior to joining Cleantech Group, Holly was a Public Affairs & Communications Executive with the Solar Trade Association and the Association of British Insurers. Before this, Holly worked in advocacy for climate and wildlife charities. ​

Holly earned an Undergraduate and a Master’s in Environmental Science from the University of East Anglia.

Kim Sturgess

Kim Sturgess is an Executive-In-Residence for the Watertech Program at Foresight; founder and CEO of WaterSMART Solutions Ltd. and has successfully led the organization since its inception in 2005. She is also the Executive Director of the not-for-profit Alberta WaterPortal Society, which provides education on key water issues in Alberta and around the world.

As the CEO of several technology based companies over her career, Kim has extensive experience in technology start-ups and technology management, as well as in oil and gas, pipelines, and industrial products and services. In addition to serving on the boards of her own companies, she has served on the boards of CCI Thermal Technologies, the Alberta Chamber of Resources, the Alberta Land Institute, the Alberta Water Council, the Calgary Airport Authority, the Council of Canadian Academies, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the National Research Council, APEGA, the Alberta Economic Development Authority, and Queen’s University. She also served as President of the Canadian Academy of Engineering.

Kim graduated from Queen’s University with a degree in Engineering Physics, and from Western University with a Master of Business Administration. In 2016, Kim received an Honorary Doctor of Science degree from Queen’s University, and in 2018 she received an Honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Calgary.

In 2007, she was named as one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women, and in 2012 she was named Business Woman of the Year in Calgary by Consumers Choice Awards. In 2015 she was awarded the SCI Canada Medal and was recognized by the Alberta Science and Technology Foundation for her Outstanding Contribution to the Alberta Science and Technology Community.

Kim has been recognized with the YWCA Women of Distinction award, the Global Woman of Vision award, the Distinguished Service Award and the Alumni Achievement Award from Queen’s University, the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal and the Alberta Centennial Medal. In 2015, she was awarded the Order of Canada for her outstanding achievements, dedication to community, and service to the nation.

Kim continues to build on her lifelong passion for water to make water management a priority for corporations, interest groups and policy makers at home in Alberta, in Canada and in the world.

Hari Suthan

Hari Suthan Subramaniam is the Chief of Strategic Growth for Opus One Solutions, with over 20 years of experience in R&D, marketing and management consulting. Prior to joining Opus One, he was the CEO of eCamion Inc., a community energy storage company and Vice Chair of Energy Storage Ontario. Hari was also a Vice President with GE Canada’s National Executive team where he drove growth in Canada by seeking out market opportunities across GE platforms and larger infrastructure projects. Additionally, he served in senior roles within Canada’s Provincial and Federal governments, including Deputy Chief of Staff and Director of Policy with the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, and member of the Government Transition Team for the Premier of Ontario as well as Federal Ministers of Canada. Hari is also a veteran of the Canadian Navy. Hari currently sits on the board of Centre for Urban Energy at Ryerson University and has previously served on the Boards of the Distributed Energy Association of Canada, McGill University, and Rouge Valley Health System.

Chris Sworder

Alex Tavasoli

Alex Tavasoli is the founder and CEO of Solistra, which is commercializing a process to make clean hydrogen out of methane and CO2 using a light-activated nanomaterial that requires zero water and requires substantially less energy. Part of the University of Toronto Solar Fuels Group and a Junior Fellow of Massey College, Alex is also a finalist in the MaRS-NRCan Women In Cleantech Challenge.

Michael Walsh

Based in Dublin, Ireland, Michael Walsh is responsible for Smart Wires’ global business development and commercial activities.

Prior to joining Smart Wires, Michael was Director of Future Grids at Ireland’s Transmission System Operator, EirGrid. In this role he was responsible for planning the transmission system on the island of Ireland and bringing new technologies into its grid development strategy. It was in this role that he first became familiar with Smart Wires’ innovative solutions. Seeing the potential, he decided to join the Smart Wires team.

During his tenure at EirGrid, Michael was a member of ENTSO-E’s System Development Committee, which oversees the planning of the European-wide transmission system.

Previously, he was Chief Executive of the Irish Wind Energy Association (IWEA) and a Board member of the European Wind Energy Association (Wind Europe). Other previous roles include Manager of market readiness at ESB National Grid, and Lecturer in Electronic Engineering at University College Dublin, Ireland.

Michael is a Fellow of Engineers Ireland and a Board member of the Energy Institute at UCD.

He holds a Bachelor of Engineering, MBA and Ph.D. from UCD, has authored many peer reviewed papers, and advised a wide variety of international bodies.

Jim Witham

Richard Youngman

Since January 2016, Richard Youngman has been CEO of San-Francisco based Cleantech Group (CTG). This followed 7 years of driving the growth of CTG’s activities outside North America, especially in Europe and Israel, and Asia, based in CTG’s office in London.

Richard has more than ten years’ experience researching cleantech innovation, venture capital markets, and start-ups across Europe and globally. He is a regular keynote speaker at major cleantech events and is the driving force behind the annual Global Cleantech 100, a list of the world’s most promising private cleantech companies.

Joe Zhou

Joe Zhou is the CEO of Quidnet Energy, which develops and deploys geomechanical pumped hydro solutions for low-cost long duration energy storage. Prior to Quidnet Energy, Joe worked at Green Charge Networks, a California-based energy storage project developer that was acquired by Engie in 2016. Joe started his career in advisory for heavy-industry capital projects at McKinsey, and in process engineering at ExxonMobil. Joe holds a B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering and a MBA.